States can hide wildfire smoke from air-quality records.

What it does

This bill changes the Clean Air Act. It lets states leave wildfire smoke out of their air-quality records. States can also leave out smoke from controlled burns meant to stop wildfires. The EPA must set up a public system to track these requests. The EPA must study when many states claim the same wildfire caused their pollution.

Who it affects

States can now report cleaner air when wildfires or controlled burns make the air dirty. People who live downwind from wildfires still breathe the same smoke. The bill may help states avoid penalties for bad air quality caused by fires.

One thing to notice

States can exclude wildfire smoke from their records without changing how much smoke people breathe. A state's air-quality record may look better even though real pollution has not gone down.

From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.

Where it stands

3 cosponsors: 2 Republicans, 1 Democrats.

• Dec 3, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Dec 3, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Environment”
• Dec 10, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
• Jan 21, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 27 - 23”
• Apr 22, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 220 - 198 (Roll no. 136). (text: CR 4/21/2026 H3013)”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

15 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 19 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.

Those reports show $64,577,324 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 29 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.

More groups named this bill than 95% of bills with any report.

Gabe Evans, who sponsored the bill, received $1,500,967 from PACs for the 2026 election.

• Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $54,660,000 in 3 reports
• American Petroleum Institute — $4,700,000 in 2 reports
• Nature Conservancy — $900,000 in 1 report
• National Mining Association — $820,000 in 1 report
• American Forest & Paper Association — $710,000 in 1 report

Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.

Words to know

• Clean Air Act — The main U.S. law that sets rules for clean air.
• controlled burns — Fires set on purpose to stop big wildfires.
• EPA — The federal agency that makes and enforces air-quality rules.
• lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
• PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
• sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.